134 Church Road, Holywood, Co. Down

134 Church Road, known as 'Cuillaire', is a detached, asymmetrical two-storey house built around 1900 to designs by Ulster architect James A. Hanna, who designed it for his own family's use. It stands on the north side of Church Road, Holywood, on a large site set within mature gardens. The site was formerly a quarry, shown as such on the first and second edition Ordnance Survey maps of 1834 and 1858. The house is a fine and nationally important example of early 20th-century Domestic Revival architecture — a style that draws on English vernacular building traditions, incorporating steeply pitched tiled roofs, dormers, timber framing, jettied construction, small-paned mullioned and transomed windows, tile-hung walls, tall ornamental chimneys, and carefully composed asymmetrical layouts.

The plan is L-shaped, facing south, with a two-storey return and catslide roof at the north-east corner. Two further elements were added around 1925: a two-storey brick turret at the north-west corner and a single-storey flat-roofed extension at the south-west re-entrant angle. Much of the original historic fabric and detailing survives.

The roof is tiled. The east slope contains a centrally positioned dormer with timber-sheeted reveals. Two tall red brick corbelled chimneystacks with clay pots rise from the roof, the one to the south being considerably smaller than the one to the north. Deep timber-sheeted eaves enclose the rafter ends and support deep timber bargeboards. The rainwater goods appear to have been largely replaced with uPVC. The walls are laid in stretcher-bond red brick with a moulded string course above the plinth and at first-floor level. The first floor is clad with scalloped timber shingles, with mock timber framing at the gable above first-floor level. Windows are mainly timber sliding sashes, most of them 6-over-1 lights set within brick reveals with voussoirs. The tripartite windows to the square-plan block have multi-pane top-hung casements.

The principal elevation faces south. To the right, a two-storey gable is abutted on the left by the single-storey flat-roofed extension, which features a cusped parapet and angle buttresses; the exposed section at first-floor level contains a centrally positioned tripartite window. The south elevation of the extension is blank. The two-storey gable is abutted on the left by a projecting porch with diagonal buttresses containing the principal entrance, with a single window to its right and a centrally positioned tripartite window at first-floor level.

The west elevation contains a two-storey gabled projecting bay at its centre, abutted on the right by the single-storey flat-roofed extension with its cusped parapet and angle buttresses; the exposed first-floor section contains a single window at centre. The west elevation of the extension contains a segmental-headed tripartite window with an angle buttress at the left. To the left corner of the two-storey gable, a three-stage octagonal turret rises, with a sliding sash window at each full facet at ground and first-floor levels; the third stage terminates with a cusped parapet.

The north projecting gable has, at ground floor, a timber-panelled door to the left and two timber sliding sash windows to the right, the central one being diminished in width. There is a single 1-over-1 timber sliding sash window at first-floor level. The exposed section to the right is blank and is abutted at the right corner by a three-stage octagonal turret matching that on the west elevation.

The east elevation is abutted on the right by the two-storey return with its catslide roof, which contains a single window at each floor, the first-floor window being multi-paned. The exposed section to the left contains three different windows at ground-floor level — a tripartite window to the left, and two timber sliding sash windows to the right, the central one again diminished in width — with two timber sliding sash windows at first-floor level.

The former quarry to the west of the house is now infilled with vegetation.

James A. Hanna was born in 1869 or 1870 and began his career in the drawing office of the Belfast and Northern Counties Railway Company, where he designed a number of black-and-white timbered station buildings, including the station at Portrush. By 1901 he was working independently as a civil engineer and architect with premises in Donegall Street, Belfast, and in Coleraine. His involvement with the Church Road site began in 1896, when he designed a house called 'The Crags' for William Dugan and his family. The professional relationship became a personal one: Hanna married Dugan's daughter Ada around 1900 and was living at The Crags with his wife and father-in-law at the time of the April 1901 census. Later that year, valuation records show that Hanna had built a house for himself within the curtilage of The Crags at a cost of £665, initially valued at £27 10s, with dimensions and a plan recorded in the contemporary valuer's notes. The two houses are first shown together on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1900–02. According to Hanna's grandson, the design of the house was influenced by the Art Nouveau tastes of Ada Hanna, who was an accomplished artist.

William Dugan died in January 1902, after which The Crags was let to a series of tenants and Dugan's daughters moved in with James and Ada at Cuillaire. The 1911 census records the household including James and Ada's only child, Denis O'Donoghue Hanna, who later became an architect, along with Dugan's daughters and a general domestic servant, an Irish speaker from County Monaghan. The only significant change in the property's valuation came in 1922, when it was raised to £53 10s, suggesting considerable additions or improvements at that time; a full-height extension to the rear is certainly a later addition and may date from this period.

James A. Hanna had a prolific and lengthy career. As well as numerous domestic dwellings, he designed a number of fine Ulster Bank buildings — notably those in Bangor and on Cromac Street, Belfast — and his Baptist faith led to work on several Baptist churches. His last known work was a water supply scheme for Ballinamallard in 1936. He died in 1941, by which time Cuillaire had been requisitioned by the army for use as officer accommodation. His widow Ada and his surviving sister-in-law Gertrude moved to a coastguard cottage at Orlock, which appears to have served as the Hanna family holiday home.

Denis O'Donoghue Hanna was born in 1901 and followed his father into civil engineering and architecture. Having attended Trinity College Dublin, he initially practised in Dublin before joining his father in practice in Belfast around 1933. He was Diocesan Architect for Cashel from 1959 and for Down from 1961, and was primarily an ecclesiastical architect, best known for churches serving the post-war housing estates. He was also a lecturer, illustrator, and writer, with a strong love of theatre developed during his student days at Trinity. Denis O'Donoghue Hanna and his family moved back into Cuillaire in 1947 and remained resident until 1997. The house continues in use as a private dwelling, having been home to three generations of architects across nearly a century of the Hanna family's occupation.